Their Gardens, Secrets and Treasures

Menu

Thunder

She was so relaxed, as she leaned back and went back and forth and back and forth and back and…wait! There was no forth! Oak went back on the swing and stayed there! Since she was in a “laid back” position anyway on the swing, she looked up and there was Sam…all 23 eyes of him…looking back at her! “Hi, Oak! Good to see ya again! Don’t be afraid, but you’re stuck in my web.” Sam kinda hung there, sheepishly looking back and forth, as Oak tried to get her bearings, as she wriggled around on the swing (which wasn’t easy, being hung up in the air like that). “Sam! What?” “Shhhhh,” Sam suddenly grabbed her hands and pulled her off the swing, onto a giant strand of web, which went from one end of the area (she still wasn’t sure what it was) to the other. Somehow, he literally put her on his back and wrapped a quick silk rope around her so she wouldn’t fall. and off they went, scurrying across the strand and then Sam threw (really) webs out of his hands so they could catch hold of each one and swing from one to the other, until they were up and over the gate. Oak could barely catch her breath because Sam flew so quickly. It really was like flying…from silken strand to the next.

Oak must have fallen asleep, because she suddenly found herself in a cave; a cave filled with webs of all colors…gold, silver, red, orange, white, black and on and on. Rather than spiders, there were fairies! Real fairies who were spinning the webs and placing them throughout the cave. Putting her little fists to her eyes to wipe the sleep away, Oak’s eyes opened as big as she could make them. Yes, the webs and the fairies were still there. “Oak!” “Thank goodness, Sam. You’re still with me,” she said as she went to hug him. His hugs were pretty snug because he had so many legs/arms with which to hug. “Of course, Oak, of course I’m with you!” With that, Sam swept her up again and they glided up on a golden strand of silk; the most beautiful golden she had ever seen. Up up up they went until they reached what appeared to be the upper floor of the cave, which really looked like a castle. Sam helped her down off the silken strand, and they walked toward a bright light that was shining from in front of them. The light was glowing and bright, yet not so bright one couldn’t look into it. It was amazing. As they approached the light, Oak could make out the form of a woman. There was something about this woman that seemed sweetly familiar. But, she had a silk veil of butterflies over most of her face and Oak could only see her eyes.

The woman stepped out from the light and just stood still and gazed about her surroundings. Oak noticed that everything was quiet and that the lady was looking over Oak’s head, so Oak turned around and almost gasped with awe, for the cave was now a soft gold and white. The little ledges up and down the walls of the cave had lovely fairies kneeling and facing this woman. Candles and torches were lit and lined the walls and pathways; stars that looked like they came down from the heavens were hanging from above and inside the frame of each star was a fairy playing a harp. The music from these harps was mesmerizing and dreamy. Oak could not stop looking around for in every direction she looked was a new surprise, a new delight. Tree frogs and lizards were dressed in light cotton robes and each had a special hat on that had tiny fireflies circling the brims of the hats. The frogs and lizards were bringing goblets of freshly mined golden grape juice. She knew this because she heard a baby girl fairy telling her friends.

Turning back to the woman, there was now a nest on the ground; or should I say on the “cloud”? First, it was a nest, but a big nest – big enough for a grown up fairy. The nest was made of beautiful twigs of cedar, birch, oak, and pine. Blended into the twigs were stems and leaves from herbs and flowers: lavender, roses petals, sage, rosemary and some marigold. The nest was lined with gardenia and plumeria blossoms. Now, although she thought it was on the floor, it was actually sitting upon a lavender colored cloud that had drifted down from the opening at the top of the cave. When the woman turned to walk toward the nest, that is when Oak saw the woman had wings! She had fairy wings! Not only did she have beautiful fairy wings, she also had hair just like Oak’s mother! It was long and wavy and reddish yellow…such a beautiful color. The woman still had her face veil on, as she went to step into the nest. But then butterflies flew from her veil to lift her long skirt so she would not trip. After she stepped into the nest and sat down, the butterflies then flew into the woman’s hair and became still, like beautiful hair pins.

Everyone in the cave knelt and then slowly rose. As they rose to their feet, the woman began speaking in a soft melodic voice (Oak was thinking it sounded like her mother). Now that she was facing everyone, it could be seen that her eyes were emerald green and soft, as soft as her voice. “My loved ones,” she began. Without warning, a fiery red smoke descended from the opening in the cave (at the top) and began circling the room, almost in the shape of pointing fingers; each poking at a fairy, or a lizard or a frog. The stench was horrific! The smoke seemed to take on the odor of a dead ogre. (Of course, Oak had never seen an ogre, much less smelled a live or dead one, but the smoke smelled like what she thought one would smell like). The ground began to shake and the little ledges that fairies were sitting on began breaking and falling to the earth like shards of glass, trying to stab and cut as they hit the ground. Thunder filled the chamber and was so loud that the fairies had to put their hands over their ears. But the thunder could not disguise or extinguish what Oak heard. It was her mother again, calling, “Oak, Oak, come home. You’re in danger. Come home.”

Turning to ask the fairy lady for help to get to her mother, Oak discovered she was gone! In her place, where the nest was, sat a giant dragon, who was looking straight at Oak, as smoked poured out of his nose. (to be continued)

“Oak, Oak, come home; please come home!” Oak heard her mother’s frantic cry for her, but she was falling so quickly it was all she could do to breathe. For that matter, it was all she could do to really hear her mother’s words, for the chimes, mixed with the thunder were sounding like a giant was stomping and with every stomp, the Earth shook and at the same time it sounded like massive windows of heavy glass were being blown out into a million pieces by an iron ball being directed by a madman driving a crane. Rather than trying to listen to everything, Oak open her eyes in an effort to see if there was something she could grab onto as she was falling. She kept trying to concentrate on not being afraid and to try to figure out what was going on and where she was falling. She thought it was a good thing that she had her pajamas on, rather than a nightgown; but then…maybe not. Perhaps the nightgown would actually have been like a parachute and slow the fall down a little; just a little. Oak started looking at her whereabouts, to try to identify landmarks, like you learn in Brownies. She remembered her leader saying, “When you’re on a trail, always look for things that will stick in your mind so if you get lost, you can maybe backtrack and find your way out”. She was doing that. A birdhouse was on the right. It was painted purple, pink, yellow and white. “I have to remember this birdhouse,” Oak said to herself. “I can do this.” But before she knew it, she passed the same birdhouse again. Or was it? All of a sudden, there were so many birdhouses of all different colors that she became confused. Shutting her eyes tightly, then reopening them did not help.

Then, Oak seemed to feel like she was no longer falling, but was jumping! This was so strange. She could not stop jumping, but as she was, Oak realized something. All this time, she had not been falling down; she was falling up! Up? Can you fall up? “Oh my,” was all Oak could say as she was jumping. Every jump seemed higher than the other or the one before it. Oak was really good at jumping rope; she never ever missed a beat. But now, Oak felt sick to her stomach…really sick. That’s when it happened.

A breeze seemed to be lifting her gingerly up and out of whatever it was that she had been in. It wasn’t a hole; it wasn’t a cup and it sure wasn’t a river, for she wasn’t wet! This breeze made her feel better. Oak was able to get her wits gathered. I mean, for a ten year old girl, the gathering of wits was a feat, but then Oak never backed down from achieving a goal or completing a task. Now I know this all sounds a bit odd. Well, of course it does. Here this little girl encountered a fairy, tons of wild wind chimes, thunder out of nowhere, falling down or falling up and now riding on a breeze. There are more odd things in this world than that.

Oops! Oak fell! Not far, but enough to shake her up a little. Looking up, she saw the breeze had been distracted by a pretty little blue cloud and it decided to head over that way. “This is so strange,” Oak muttered to herself, as she stood up and brushed off her pajamas and set them straight. “What’s strange?” Oak stopped and looked around for the person who said that. There was no one. “Yikes, I must be so tired. I’m hungry too and now I’m hearing things” Oak thought. “Hello? What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you answer?” Oak quickly scanned where she was. It was only now that she realized the breeze had brought her to a sweet little garden; not too big and not too little. It had a cedar tree in the back, pretty purple flowers, and all sorts of plants and such.

Do you ever get the feeling that someone is looking at you? Well, as Oak was looking around this garden, she suddenly felt someone’s eyes on her. Oh, it was strange. She slowly turned around, but no one was there! There was only a little spider hanging from a branch of the cedar tree. Oak generally didn’t care for spiders, but this one was different. It had clothes on or at least it looked like that. She got a little closer and then the spider yelled, “Are you deaf?” Startled, Oak jumped back. She said nothing, just stared and stared. The spider was a creature of action. It sort of pulled itself up by its belt – yes, that’s right, its belt. It then jumped on a silver strand of its web and the strand began swinging. It went back and forth and on one of its forths, the spider leapt onto a leaf very close to Oak. It was pretty obvious the spider was a boy because of his belt, his jeans and his boots. He also had a shirt on with the buttons on the side of the shirt, you know, like boys. I have to add that jeans for spiders are, well, multi-legged. Oak just stared at him and he stared right back at her with 23 eyes! In the background, Oak heard her mother calling for her again. This time it sounded like her mother was crying. Oak felt so sad and the spider could see this.

“Who is that calling” Is it your mother?” By this time, reality set in and Oak realized that she was far far away from home and her mother; she was so lonely and scared. Nodding, Oak began to cry. This made the spider feel badly and he sat down on the leaf. “I’m Sam Spider, Jr.” Sam put out two of his arms to shake her hand, but then decided against it, knowing she was already distraught. She looked up and Sam winked at her. Although Sam had 23 eyes, he was very coordinated and winked with 17 of them. “Oh”, said Oak. “That’s really neat!” “Aw.” Sam said as he bashfully looked down – well, 12 of his eyes looked down, the others crossed. “Sam, I miss my mother. I miss her so much. I worry about her too. She must think something horrible happened to me.” Sam cocked his head and said, “No, Oak. Believe me, she has a good idea where you are. That’s not to say she’s not worried, for she knows what a strange land this place is.” Just as he finished is, a giant mushroom suddenly appeared right next to Oak. It was giant, as I said, and was brown and purple. It smiled too! Actually it grinned at both Sam and Oak. This was all so odd; so very odd for Oak. She began to feel lightheaded and woozy again. Oak thought she might fall against the Mushroom because the garden began moving – not spinning, just moving. The flowers were walking, the trees were swaying and the grass began moving, much like a river.

Within a moment of a dream, it was dark! Oak found herself in a swing in the garden and Sam and the Mushroom were nowhere to be found. She began to feel sad and scared and went to slow the swing down, but it kept lazily swinging – back and forth and back and forth. Actually the swinging made her feel better. The moon was so big! It was huge and the clouds were almost dancing in the sky. Lightning bugs were darting here and there and she could hear tree frogs chirping. Oh, she loved tree frogs. So did her mother. From the time Oak was a little girl, her mother taught her that frogs, especially tree frogs, could be her best friends. She would say, “Oak, if it storms really badly and you’re frightened by the thunder, just listen for the tree frogs to start singing; for they sing a lullaby to the thunder, which helps to calm and quiet it down. Also, if there should be a flood, tree frogs are famous for helping little girls and boys climb trees to get away from the flood waters.” Oak would listen to her mother for hours and hours talk about nature and all the wonderful things that most people don’t even know about or see.

Just thinking about her mother’s stories made her feel so much better. Oak leaned back on the swing to look straight up at that full moon. It’s here that Oak’s story begins to reveal a secret. (to be continued)

If you remember, Oak was sitting in her little garden at the back of her yard; drawn there by a faint flickering light that could have been a fairy! So she slipped into the garden and sat and was silent; as silent could be! Oak’s head didn’t even move when her eyes would look to the right, then to the left, above and down. Why, if you were a fly in the garden, you would not be able to hear her breathe. Then almost, as if it was always there, just barely, Oak heard “tinkling”…the tinkling of crystal or sea glass or…well, she wasn’t sure. Listening, Oak decided it was crystal AND sea glass tinkling – together, as if on a wind chime that maybe fluttered down from Heaven or fluttered up from the sea. Now Oak was well-versed in grammar and English and everything that goes with it; she knew fluttered up from the sea maybe wouldn’t make sense to everyone, but to those who mattered – it did! Anyway, the tinkling kept up and began to sound closer and a wee bit stronger – not loud (for fairies or wind chimes would never be loud), just stronger.

She went to brush a wisp of hair from her right cheek and as she did, Oak felt something and winced, thinking it might be a bug. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t really go away; it just darted from her fingers and found a different place on her cheek to make its presence known. As Oak went to swat at the bug, she suddenly thought that maybe it wasn’t a bug; it could be a fairy. “Oh my gosh”, she thought. “A fairy! A fairy,” she screamed in her head. Ah, so excited, Oak could barely sit still. But still…she sat. Listening intently, she thought she heard some faint rustling…like the rustle you hear when you open a present and it’s wrapped lightly in tissue paper. sshshhhshshew Say it quietly…shshhshshew….and as you come to the end, the shew ends almost silently. Her eyes were slowing swiveling in her head as she scanned the room. Light brush on her cheek, shshhshshew…and flickers of light, or perhaps the thought of lights; whatever, she felt, she heard and she saw everything she needed to know in her young smart mind that there was a fairy in the room. “Tap tap tappity tap tap tap,” at her shoe; she felt that on her shoe. Looking down, Oak saw the most beautiful little fairy that one could ever possibly imagine in this world or in any other world, for that matter. Taken by the magic and, oh just the magic of it all, Oak just stared at the fairy.

The fairy picked up a beautiful wind chime that looked exactly like what Oak imagined. The little thing just shook and shook that wind chime, causing the delicate crystals and sea glass to literally come alive and each crystal and each sea glass rose up, off the bark (handle) and then, as if a wizard had flipped his wand, each piece then created its own wind chime. Before Oak knew it, the garden was filled with little itsy bitsy wind chimes; not so many that you couldn’t move, but let’s say that if you were there, you would have to watch, very carefully, where you were walking, sitting, stooping or being or even standing! But what was amazing was the sound. It was the sound of crystal chandeliers and sea glass harps, all playing in tune with one another; being directed by an unseen maestro of mystical magical music. The melody seemed as if it was straight from Heaven or Fairyland and seemed so familiar, Oak was sure she knew the song, but couldn’t, for the life of her, remember it. “That’s right,” she thought, “it’s a memory, I know it is. I just can’t remember this song.”

Having traveled in her mind to the room of memories, Oak almost forgot about the wind chimes…until the room grew silent…again. She looked around and saw that the chimes had floated down to the floor of the garden…gently, like a very light snow; landing quietly and sitting still. The little fairy then flew slowly up to Oak and beat her little wings while she hovered in the air in front of Oak’s face. “Greetings, Oak Willowglimmer.” “You know my name?” Oak’s heart really began to flutter. “Of course I do. I’ve known you all your life,” the fairy said. “My name is Gossamer Beamfly and you are Oak Willowglimmer.“ At this point, let me describe the fairy. She was only four inches high and had beautiful pink hair; so pink that you would think you were looking at cotton candy. Gossamer had beautiful blue eyes with green little sparkly glitter spots in them. Her skin was a pale pale green…really just a hint of green…very light. She was indeed lovely.

Gossamer said, “I know your mother too. I know her really well.” “How do you know us?” Oak asked. “I can’t really say; just know that I do. Please don’t ask questions for my answers would only confuse you. Plus, I’m your elder.” “My elder?” Oak tilted her head and looked at Gossamer. “You can’t be older than me. You’re so tiny and young.” “Well, my dear, we fairies are like that. We appear to be young or old or whatever, but we’re really the opposite! I’m 125 years old. Just had my birthday last week.” “Oh my gosh,” exclaimed Oak. “I can hardly believe this, but wait! I do believe you, it’s just…well. It’s like I’m in the middle of a fairy tale! Really! My friends would never ever believe me.” Gossamer fluttered closer to Oak’s face and looked right in her eyes and said, “There is no reason to even tell them. The more people that know about us, the less…uh, how do I explain this. For every human that hears about a fairy, but doesn’t believe, two fairies are frozen in time, way down deep in the Honeycrooked Tree right in the middle of Greenwood Forest.” Gossamer looked sad now. Oak thought she saw a tear slip down her cheek, but it was a tiny diamond or a tear that turned into a tiny diamond that fell upon the toe of Oak’s shoe. “Oh my”, said Oak. “I’m so sorry to hear this. It just seems like everyone would believe in you and other fairies!” Right at that moment, a clap of thunder sounded and shook the canopy over the garden. Oak jumped and Gossamer began flying a circle as fast as she could – over and over and round and round, until Oak became dizzy. “Stop”, Oak whispered. She tried to yell, but her words only came out as a whisper. “It’s only thunder. Thunder cannot hurt you.” Gossamer kept flying in a circle and the tiny wind chimes were rising in the air; their crystals and sea glass clattering and chattering…nothing like earlier when they sounded like angelic harp music. The pieces of glass and crystal were flying and swinging and Gossamer was flying like a dragonfly that had lost its way and the thunder kept pounding the ground and Oak got more and more dizzy. In the background of all the clamoring, Oak could hear her mother, Mary, calling for her. Only this time, rather than the usual mother call, it sounded a little frantic. Oak called back, “Mommy, I’m here, I’m here.” “Oak, Oak, please answer Mommy! Please! Oak, Oak, come home, come home.”

Oak was feeling faint. The tinkling, the banging, the fluttering, the manic wings, circles round and round, Mommy calling…all these things were rushing through Oak’s head and then she fell – and fell and fell.